Process plants are often managed using industrial process control and automation systems. Conventional control and automation systems routinely include a variety of networked devices, such as servers, workstations, switches, routers, firewalls, safety systems, proprietary real-time controllers, and industrial field devices. Often times, there is a need to have multiple devices using separate protocols communicating in the systems. Due to the cost and complexity, constraints on the number of routers to accommodate may result in the number of possible devices to be limited.